Los Angeles - Pop diva Mariah Carey has overtaken Elvis with her 18th number-one single on the Billboard charts and now trails only The Beatles. Carey's single Touch My Body was at the top of Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart and also headed the trade magazine's digital download chart, thanks to an unprecedented 286,000 downloads in its debut week.
Presley was also was nudged by Madonna from his standing as the recording artist with the most top-10 hits in the rock era. The recent Rock and Roll Hall of Famer surpassed him with her 37th top 10 single, 4 Minutes.
Touch My Body is the first single off Carey's upcoming album E equals MC2, due out April 16. Industry experts believe that the album could yield several more number-one singles, enabling Carey to break The Beatles' record of 20 top sellers.
*******************************************************************
Universal to make Neil Armstrong biopic First Man
Los Angeles - Universal has acquired the rights to First Man: The Life of Neil A Armstrong and will turn it into a film about the first human to set foot on the moon, according to Variety Wednesday.
The book was written by NASA historian James Hansen, who got rare direct access to Armstrong, a test pilot-turned-astronaut who was known as "the Ice Commander."
"The closer he got to the moon, the further away he became from his family," producer Nicole Perlman told Variety. "He had a family tragedy before Apollo that turned him into this driven astronaut, and he became such a perfect hero that while Buzz Aldrin was announced to be the first man on the moon, NASA reversed its decision because Neil was regarded as more heroic."
Armstrong returned from the moon as one of the most famous men on Earth but became an intensely private man.
*******************************************************************
Actors to begin new contract talks
Los Angeles - The Screen Actors Guild is to begin new contract negotiations with Hollywood producers on April 15, the actors' union announced Wednesday.
The talks will start some two months before SAG's contract expires, as both sides attempt to avoid the protracted strike that followed a dispute between the producers and the screenwriters' union. As in that dispute, the main issue up for negotiation is residual payments for work distributed over mobile phones, the internet and other new media formats.
*******************************************************************
Report: Beyonce, Jay-Z about to wed
Los Angeles - Superstar soul couple Beyonce and Jay-Z are set to wed after taking out a marriage license in New York, People magazine reported Wednesday.
Knowles, 26, and Jay-Z, 38, have been dating for more than five years, and speculation about their wedding plans has been a staple of gossip columnists for years.
Many reported an imminent wedding rumor in December 2006 when the couple took a romantic trip to the Caribbean, but that claim was quickly squashed by their representatives.
Beyonce has always sounded patient about tying the knot.
"You can't rush a man into anything - whether it's a relationship, marriage or having children," she told InStyle magazine in 2006.
